Research & Development Discussion - Delta+1

@JimmyHat:

I just wish she’d respond to me sometimes.  Instead of misreading what I wrote or ignoring it all together.  Not like I didn’t call it though.

I do, I did not feel it necessary to state to you that the idea behind this whole thing was to give the minors at least one free chance a round to get a technology and thus not infringe on their ability to keep themselves sovereign.  Perhaps I should have, you were not there for the original discussion.  It was later added that it should be based on what cash you have so that you could save a few IPC and still get your free die.  Then we wondered how it would work for bigger nations - after all, they have stronger economies, more resources and more historical accuracy in actually developing weapons, but we did not want it to get out of hand, so a tiered system was created.  This discussion was to determine 3 things:

1. What should the tiers be?
2. What should the cost of extra dice be?  Should they be banned altogether?
3. Do we need to refine each individual technology, or are they fine as listed now?

All changing the income brackets would do - in effect - is to destroy the original premise of the rule:  To give minor technologies easier access to technologies.  Anything that makes this fundamental change moot, should be immediately discarded.  We had two votes, both votes were to make it easier for minor countries to get technologies.

Now, your request to make it optional was reasonable, it did not effect the ease of minor countries to get technologies, and was incorporated with little debate.  YG and Vance, primarily, wanted application of technology at the end.  To be honest, I thought it already was in Global, and Anniversary and basically everything since the first day LHTR 2.0 came out for Revised!  Otherwise, I would have stipulated it to begin and it would have been copied over when YG copied the agreed upon rule for further refinement.  Battleships went from being 3 hit to 2 hit but with AA Guns.  Carriers went from carrying 3 fighters to being able to recover fighters when damaged.  Etc.

Basically, refinements are getting in, clarifications are getting in.  I am balking at acquiessing to having major changes that negate the purpose of the new rule from getting in unopposed.  It could still get in - assuming we either have a vote or Vance and YG scream at me and tell me that we need to change it.   Even then I’ll give it one more big push to keep it out - it violates the spirit of the rule!  We wanted MINORS to have FREE access to technology.  We did not want you to have to control half the globe to get one die.

Now, the price of dice are very high to prevent major nations from buying up a bunch of extra dice!  Let’s be frank, Italy, England, Australia are not buying dice even at 5 IPC each.  America, Germany, Japan would buy dice at 20 IPC each if they were motivated - they can afford it!  They just won’t buy as many dice.

I’m good with discussing the price of extra dice.  I really am.  We can even discuss the brackets so that they are high/low enough that you are comfortable with them.  What I won’t do is stop ANZAC (or someone) from saving 2 IPC to qualify for 1 die.

Okay, looking back through here is what we have for actual posted positions:

Young Grasshopper:  Cash on Hand
Vance:  Cash on Hand
Special Forces: Cash on Hand
Salan: Cash on Hand
Jennifer:  Cash on Hand
JimmyHat:  Income end of round (basically, cash on hand, but you cannot count anything saved.) - disclaimer, Jimmy has said he does not want to play with technology and we already appeased him by making it optional.  :wink:  Not saying his argument is invalid, just saying whatever we choose won’t effect him one way or the other as he won’t play with the rule.
Mantlefan:  Either collected income, whatever you would collect at the start of your turn, only purchased dice, etc (he’s had like 6 or 7 submissions, none the same as the rest.)

Right now, just based on what I remember from the pages - as I went through and killed double posts (posts where someone says the exact same thing, just with different words) we have:

5 - Want Cash on Hand, you are allowed to save your income if you want.  That the penalty for saving your money is enough to offset any advantage getting an extra die could possibly give you.
2 - Want (if I can force Mantlefan to agree with JimmyHat’s steady, unchanging request) only what you collect at the end of your round, nothing saved.

Given this, why not say a nation may save up to 5 IPC (since they come in 1s, 5s and 10s) in any given round to apply towards getting a free technology roll next round.  This is about the maximal end of any nation’s realistic savings in any given round is far short of “buying” a die without spending money.  We’ll also conceed that Treasury Money does not count for your free dice - but may be used to purchase dice!

National Objectives - the major source of Germany, Japan, Russia, America and Australia’s income (if attained) will count towards your “income” to determine what free dice you may or may not qualify for.

I hope this compromise is enough that nobody is happy, but all can agree so we can close this discussion and add the rule to the manuscript (which I am typing up, because I asked YG if I could and he said yes. :P  So blame me for all typos!)

Jimmy:  Do you object to this compromise?  (You speak for Mantle now.  IL banned him again.)
YG, Vance, Salan, SpecFor: Do you object to this compromise?

My position(not mantlefans) is that limiting extra dice to 4-6 means minor nations cannot buy extra dice.

Secondly, I vote for going from CoH to Income at the beginning of your turn.  NO’s included…that you hold at the beginning of the turn.  Its very simple because you just look at where your ipc token is on the chart, and add any NO’s you hold right now.

I gave a bunch of reasons a page ago as to why this is the preferred method.  Most of the reasons are one’s Mantlefan came up with, but that doesn’t invalidate them.

@Cmdr:

Given this, why not say a nation may save up to 5 IPC (since they come in 1s, 5s and 10s) in any given round to apply towards getting a free technology roll next round.  This is about the maximal end of any nation’s realistic savings in any given round is far short of “buying” a die without spending money.  We’ll also conceed that Treasury Money does not count for your free dice - but may be used to purchase dice! 
No reason to limit the amount someone can save, it may be a poor tactic but lets not remove it from play.  Also I agree that you can spend your ipcs any way you see fit and that includes tech.

National Objectives - the major source of Germany, Japan, Russia, America and Australia’s income (if attained) will count towards your “income” to determine what free dice you may or may not qualify for.
I agree that NO’s should count towards this.

Although i’m inclined to prefer income at end of turn, I think all the presented options are workable. So i have no objections really.

@Young:

@Vance:

I’ll vote for anything, just please make it stop.

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

I think Vance may have turned his plastic gun onto himself.

LOL was thinking about it.

Unless we get a sudden flury of votes, it appears the rule stands as currently written (I editted it to include the max 5 IPC saved from last round to be counted for FREE DICE, it can still be used for units, obviously, or saved again.)

Would you guys like me to make up two versions so then they can be put to a vote?  They would be the same text, except one would have cash on hand and one would have income.

We can, Vance, but right now we have 1 person, who admittedly says he will never play with technology, and everyone else who wants cash on hand.  There might be silent viewers who really don’t care one way or the other.  It was in the interests of preventing abuse I relented to the compromise of only 5 IPC being saved that counts towards free dice…

Guess you’d have the poll says:

Option 1:  Per written rule, no restrictions.
Option 2:  Per written rule, only 5 IPC or less counts towards free dice.
Option 3:  Per written rule, no saved income counts.

(Although, to be honest, I’d say Option 1 and Option 2 are identical to how they would be played in the game.)

Sure no problem.  I was just offering.

@JimmyHat:

@Cmdr:

Given this, why not say a nation may save up to 5 IPC (since they come in 1s, 5s and 10s) in any given round to apply towards getting a free technology roll next round.  This is about the maximal end of any nation’s realistic savings in any given round is far short of “buying” a die without spending money.  We’ll also conceed that Treasury Money does not count for your free dice - but may be used to purchase dice! 
No reason to limit the amount someone can save, it may be a poor tactic but lets not remove it from play.  Also I agree that you can spend your ipcs any way you see fit and that includes tech.

National Objectives - the major source of Germany, Japan, Russia, America and Australia’s income (if attained) will count towards your “income” to determine what free dice you may or may not qualify for.
I agree that NO’s should count towards this.

So are you fine with the revision that only 5 of your saved IPC can count towards qualifying for free dice and that no plundered IPC (from taking a capitol) count for free dice at all?

I grant, if America saves their 52 IPC from round 3’s builds and then collects 70 IPC they would qualify for 3 dice and that could be a problem, but I disagree preventing a nation with only a few IPC to save them for a free die is a problem.  5 seems a nice, small number that allows you to get a die if you are really close to it, but not enough that it is an abuse.

Ya know, this saving IPCs to get free tech rolls seems a little far fetched to me.  If I am Italy I usually need every last dollar to buy units and I need them NOW!  So, yeah I am fine with that; not speaking for anyone else though.

@Cmdr:

Unless we get a sudden flury of votes, it appears the rule stands as currently written (I editted it to include the max 5 IPC saved from last round to be counted for FREE DICE, it can still be used for units, obviously, or saved again.)

dumb idea.  Arbitrary limits added just for clutter?

@JimmyHat:

@Cmdr:

Unless we get a sudden flury of votes, it appears the rule stands as currently written (I editted it to include the max 5 IPC saved from last round to be counted for FREE DICE, it can still be used for units, obviously, or saved again.)

dumb idea.  Arbitrary limits added just for clutter?

So you’re saying just let it stand with all saved money counted?  As Vance said, most nations need all their cash now (and even then, they usually need more than what they have) and I tend to agree with that statement.  Compromising and only having 5 IPC count at least gives nations a chance to get the extra 1 or 2 IPC needed for the next teir while stopping (say) America from saving their whole paycheck just to have 3 dice on Round 4 (just before engaging in War.)

I’m saying each rule we add to Delta should be added to fill a development hole that Larry left us.  Not totally arbitrary and meaningless.  I don’t want a delta rule book that has all these little rules that you have to know about…KISS wins and this 5 ipc limit is not KISS.